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PHYSICISTS DISCOVER A WEIRD, ENTIRELY NEW

OF MATTER
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A team of physicists has discovered an unusual form

of matternot a conventional metal, insulator, or
magnet, for example, but something entirely
different.
This phase, characterized by an unusual ordering of
electrons, offers possibilities for new electronic
device functionalities and could hold the solution to a
long-standing mystery in condensed matter physics
having to do with high-temperature superconductivity
the ability for some materials to conduct electricity
without resistance, even at high temperatures
approaching 100 degrees Celsius.
The discovery of this phase was completely
unexpected and not based on any prior theoretical prediction, says David Hsieh, an assistant professor of
physics at California Institute of Technology (Caltech), who previously was on a team that discovered
another form of matter called a topological insulator.
The whole field of electronic materials is driven by the discovery of new phases, which provide the
playgrounds in which to search for new macroscopic physical properties.
Hsieh and his colleagues describe their findings in Nature Physics. Liuyan Zhao, a postdoctoral scholar in
Hsiehs group, is lead author.
The physicists made the discovery while testing a laser-based measurement technique that they recently
developed to look for what is called multipolar order. To understand multipolar order, first consider a crystal
with electrons moving around throughout its interior. Under certain conditions, it can be energetically
favorable for these electrical charges to pile up in a regular, repeating fashion inside the crystal, forming
what is called a charge-ordered phase. The building block of this type of order, namely charge, is simply a
scalar quantitythat is, it can be described by just a numerical value, or magnitude.
In addition to charge, electrons also have a degree of freedom known as spin. When spins line up parallel to
each other (in a crystal, for example), they form a ferromagnetthe type of magnet you might use on your
refrigerator and that is used in the strip on your credit card. Because spin has both a magnitude and a
direction, a spin-ordered phase is described by a vector.
Over the last several decades, physicists have developed sophisticated techniques to look for both of these
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Over the last several decades, physicists have developed sophisticated techniques to look for both of these
types of phases. But what if the electrons in a material are not ordered in one of those ways? In other
words, what if the order were described not by a scalar or vector but by something with more
dimensionality, like a matrix?

This could happen, for example, if the building block of the ordered phase was a pair of oppositely pointing
spinsone pointing north and one pointing southdescribed by what is known as a magnetic quadrupole.
Such examples of multipolar-ordered phases of matter are difficult to detect using traditional experimental
probes.

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As it turns out, the new phase that the Hsieh group identified is precisely this type of multipolar order.
To detect multipolar order, Hsiehs group utilized an effect called optical harmonic generation, which is
exhibited by all solids but is usually extremely weak. Typically, when you look at an object illuminated by a
single frequency of light, all of the light that you see reflected from the object is at that frequency. When
you shine a red laser pointer at a wall, for example, your eye detects red light. However, for all materials,
there is a tiny amount of light bouncing off at integer multiples of the incoming frequency. So with the red
laser pointer, there will also be some blue light bouncing off of the wall. You just do not see it because it is
such a small percentage of the total light. These multiples are called optical harmonics.

The Hsieh groups experiment exploited the fact that changes in the symmetry of a crystal will affect the
strength of each harmonic differently. Since the emergence of multipolar ordering changes the symmetry of
the crystal in a very specific waya way that can be largely invisible to conventional probestheir idea
was that the optical harmonic response of a crystal could serve as a fingerprint of multipolar order.
We found that light reflected at the second harmonic frequency revealed a set of symmetries completely
different from those of the known crystal structure, whereas this effect was completely absent for light
reflected at the fundamental frequency, says Hsieh. This is a very clear fingerprint of a specific type of
multipolar order.
The specific compound that the researchers studied was strontium-iridium oxide (Sr2IrO4), a member of the
class of synthetic compounds broadly known as iridates. Over the past few years, there has been a lot of
interest in Sr2IrO4 owing to certain features it shares with copper-oxide-based compounds, or cuprates.
Cuprates are the only family of materials known to exhibit superconductivity at high temperatures
exceeding 100 Kelvin (173 degrees Celsius). Structurally, iridates and cuprates are very similar. And like
the cuprates, iridates are electrically insulating antiferromagnets that become increasingly metallic as
electrons are added to or removed from them through a process called chemical doping. A high enough
level of doping will transform cuprates into high-temperature superconductors, and as cuprates evolve from
being insulators to superconductors, they first transition through a mysterious phase known as the
pseudogap, where an additional amount of energy is required to strip electrons out of the material.
For decades, scientists have debated the origin of the pseudogap and its relationship to superconductivity
whether it is a necessary precursor to superconductivity or a competing phase with a distinct set of
symmetry properties. If that relationship were better understood, scientists believe, it might be possible to
develop materials that superconduct at temperatures approaching room temperature.
Recently, a pseudogap phase also has been observed in Sr2IrO4and Hsiehs group has found that the
multipolar order they have identified exists over a doping and temperature window where the pseudogap is
present. The researchers are still investigating whether the two overlap exactly, but Hsieh says the work
suggests a connection between multipolar order and pseudogap phenomena.
There is also very recent work by other groups showing signatures of superconductivity in Sr2IrO4 of the
same variety as that found in cuprates, he says. Given the highly similar phenomenology of the iridates
and cuprates, perhaps iridates will help us resolve some of the longstanding debates about the relationship
between the pseudogap and high-temperature superconductivity.
Hsieh says the finding emphasizes the importance of developing new tools to try to uncover new
phenomena. This was really enabled by a simultaneous technique advancement, he says.
Furthermore, he adds, these multipolar orders might exist in many more materials. Sr2IrO4 is the first
thing we looked at, so these orders could very well be lurking in other materials as well, and thats exactly
what we are pursuing next.
Additional coauthors are from Caltech, Tel Aviv University, Iowa State University, and the University of
Kentucky. The Army Research Office, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Institute for
Quantum Information and Matter, an NSF Physics Frontiers Center with support from the Gordon and Betty
Moore Foundation, funded the work ( via futurity.org ).
MORE: Scientists create never-before-seen form of matter
MORE: LHC detects particle that may be new form of matter

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